English

Consistency of a counterexample to Naimark's problem

Operator Algebras 2009-11-10 v1 Functional Analysis Logic

Abstract

We construct a C*-algebra that has only one irreducible representation up to unitary equivalence but is not isomorphic to the algebra of compact operators on any Hilbert space. This answers an old question of Naimark. Our construction uses a combinatorial statement called the diamond principle, which is known to be consistent with but not provable from the standard axioms of set theory (assuming those axioms are consistent). We prove that the statement ``there exists a counterexample to Naimark's problem which is generated by 1\aleph_1 elements'' is undecidable in standard set theory.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0312135,
  title  = {Consistency of a counterexample to Naimark's problem},
  author = {Charles Akemann and Nik Weaver},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0312135},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

10 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T17:00:29.228Z